The paper feed assembly discussed herein generally relates to an assembly that engages a paper to be printed, feeds the paper to a pre-determined print area, and retracts itself from the paper. More specifically, the paper feed assembly discussed herein performs the foregoing functions with a single driver device.
Laser printers, inkjet printers, and point of sale (POS) printers generally require gears, pulleys, rollers, and the like and a combination of motors and solenoid valves (xe2x80x9cdriver devicesxe2x80x9d) to engage a paper to be printed, feed the paper to a pre-determined print area, and deliver the printed paper, after it has been printed on, to a tray or a stacking chute. The paper discussed herein, for example, can be a check, a deposit slip, or a withdrawal slip. The use of more than one driver device is generally disadvantage for several reasons including the requirement that the overall printer be sufficiently large to accommodate the additional driver device, the added manufacturing costs for including the additional driver device, the higher power consumption to the end user for running the additional driver device, and having additional moving parts which can fail.
POS printers for banking transactions in particular generally require duplicate reports for multiple parties. For example, in a typical banking transaction, a bank may need to print on a deposit slip for its own record and may need to print again on a journal tape or a receipt for a merchant for his or her record. Consequently, available POS printers generally require multiple driver devices for printing on the paper and different set of driver devices for printing on the journal tape. Examples of POS printers with multiple driver devices are described in U.S. Pat Nos. 4,944,620; 5,080,513; 5,294,204; and 5,399,038. The disclosures of these patents, are incorporated herein by reference as it set forth in full. While the POS printers described in these patents are somewhat compact, inexpensive, and highly reliable, they utilize multiple driver devices and may therefore be disadvantageous for the reasons discussed.
Referring specifically to the ""513 patent, there is shown and described a two-driver device for engaging a paper and feeding the engaged paper to a pre-determined print area. The ""513 patent discloses a solenoid 51 which comprises a pinch roller 46 and a feed roller 37. When the solenoid 51 is actuated by the printer circuitry, the actuation moves the pinch roller 46, via a lever 47, and engages the paper between the pinch roller 46 and the feed roller 37. Next, a stepper motor 38 is actuated to turn the feed roller 37. The feed roller, in turn, moves the paper that is engaged between it and the pinch roller 46 in a horizontal direction. The paper is moved to a desired print position for printing by the print head 55. After the paper reaches the desired print position, the pinch roller 46 retracts so that the paper can be advanced by a different drive mechanism in the vertical direction for printing on multiple lines. The solenoid 51 and the stepper motor 38 are two separate driver devices used by the ""513 patent to engage the paper and feed the paper.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a paper feed assembly which uses a single driver to engage the paper to be printed, feed or move the paper to a certain position such as a print position, and then retract so that the paper can be advanced vertically by a different set of driver devices for printing on multiple lines. In addition, there is also a need for a paper feed assembly which uses a single driver to engage the paper that has been printed on and moves the printed paper into a tray or a holding chute so that the printer is available to perform a new transaction.
According to the present invention, there is provided a paper feed assembly design that both engages a paper to be printed on and feeds the paper to a pre-determined position with a continuous rotation of a motor. Subsequent to feeding the paper, the paper feed assembly provided is also responsive to a continues reverse motor rotation and retracts from the paper so that the paper may be printed on by a print head or the like.
The paper feed assembly according to the present invention comprises a motor, a roller arm, a gear train, and an assembly frame; the roller arm further comprising a drive roller, a driven roller, and a belt interconnecting the two rollers; wherein the motor has a first rotation which corresponds to a first signal input and a second rotation which corresponds to a second signal input; wherein the roller arm has a first travel direction which corresponds to the motor first rotation and a second travel direction which corresponds to the motor second rotation, and wherein the assembly frame is configured for assembling the motor, the roller arm, and the gear train thereon.
The paper feed assembly according to the present invention may also be characterized by a cage and mounted to the cage are a roller arm, a motor having a motor rotation, and a gear train for transferring the motor rotation to the roller arm; the roller arm further comprising a drive roller, a driven roller and a belt, and wherein the two rollers and the belt are configured to rotate as a consequence of the motor rotation.
The paper feed assembly performs the engaging and feeding function by utilizing friction to rotate the roller arm and after the roller arm engages the paper, utilizing slippage between the roller arm and the roller to feed the paper via the belt or O-ring.
The invention also includes a method for utilizing the paper feed assembly. The method comprising integrating the paper feed assembly into a POS printer and then sending signals to the paper feed assembly to engage the paper and to feed the paper.